It's the last Ghost Blog of the Halloween season and I'm so excited that it's written by my cutie little sissy (in-law), Candace. I am so blessed to have such a fun little S.I.L. ...and that she lives like 2 blocks away from Cam and I! She's a fun one and I am so excited to see her Halloween costume this year!

Hey there peeps! I'm Candace from Lovely Little Rants and my pretty Sisty in law, Andrea has invited me to come say wassup about Halloween and what not. Anyways, I love Halloween! It's the BEST. This year, I'm totes being Luna Lovegood [from Harry Potter in case you weren't shore] But now it's time to show off two past costumes.

Last year, Cam [the hubs of Andrea, of course] Andrea, and I and my d8 went on a Halloweekend date! It was sweet. Literally.

Now to the good stuff. behold:

Me, the twin, the older brothers. Classic.

I can only imagine how much candy we got that year.

Welp, have a lovely Halloween and remember that this is the ONLY day of the year it's totally acceptable to accept candy from complete strangers.

Rich neighborhoods?

ohh yeahhh.

Isn't that little fireman so hott?! (pun?)

Oh, yeah, back to Candace.

Loves her!

She's going to make such a good Luna! I'm excited to see her all Lovegood'd up.

Today I am ever so thrilled to share a ghost post from one of my online & real life favs, Mandy.

One time we sang Popular together at a karaoke night. Just putting that out there. She knows more about Harry Potter than anyone I've ever met -and only uses that knowledge for good.Along with that, she is also quite the lover of Halloween and shares some of that love with us today

She'll mess you up, but what a doll.This post has made me even more excited to get to work on mine and Camaron's costumes.I loooove dressing up just as much as Mandy. Be sure to give Mandy a holla over at Dash It All (tis a most wondrous place)

She blogs over at My Songbook and has a super fun family that is big on traditions

(I've never actually met her family, but Camaron's family only ever has great things to say about them).

To my mom’s credit, my family had real traditions. We had Halloween feasts; we would carve pumpkins, and go trick-or-treating. But the traditions that really stick out to me are the ones that were never meant to be traditions at all. Here are a few traditions that are even better:

1. I dislike pickles. But for some reason, every Halloween I would stuff my face with them to the point where there were none left for anyone else. This was probably because my mom topped those nasty things with other things that actually made pickles taste good. She topped them with cream-cheese and then wrapped them in turkey meat. Pickle time!

2. We soon discovered that Taylor (my little brother) was not a happy trick-or-treater unless he had fake blood all over himself, no matter what he was. I remember him as a happy dead base-ball player, happy dead school boy… happy dead vampire. But not a happy Indian.

3. We carved pumpkins, and we would all laugh at how Chantel couldn’t touch the insides of the pumpkin, so mom or dad would end up removing the goop for her. (I would bet that she has never removed the goop herself.)

please note the lipstick :)

4. I would find the biggest pumpkin I could possibly find. (I am not a cheap date to the pumpkin patch).

5. I would always be what Chelsey was for Halloween the year before. I copied her every chance I got. I copied everything she ever did. I am probably copying her right now...

But no matter how goofy our unexpected traditions got, Halloween was always a blast. In fact, the goofier the traditions, the better, I say!

Happy Halloween from Halloween's past!!

Aren't her pictures so fun?!

I'm now even more excited to dress up for Halloween -I may or may not be wearing my costume right now.

Those pumpkin candy buckets make me want to take little kids trick-or-treating. I can't wait until all of us have a ton of kids and get together and create holiday traditions:)

Be sure to stop by Tani's blog for more amazingness

...and brace yourself for more terrifyingly-tight ghost posts all this week!

Today I am so excited to share a ghost post from my most besty best best friend, Alyssa. (seriously, we've made Josh Groban music videos together and everything)

She's one of the happiest/cleverest/funniest people I know. And to top it off, she seriously understands the true spirit of Halloween. (I know there's room for some sort of Halloween pun in there... go for it!)

Long before Emo's were wearing him on their sweatshirts, I was crushing on Jack Skellington big time! I'm Alyssa, over at Happy Happens and I was so excited to get an invite to post for Andrea (Or A-dawg as she was called growing up). That movie and characters hold good memories for me and I love the good feelings I get when I watch it around this time of year! Best part is, it's good for Christmas too! I think that's why my family connected with it early on. We are Christmas nutzies, and try to incorporate it in every holiday somehow! Behold:

Our Halloween Tree!

Upon finishing the tree, we all gathered around the piano and sang Christmas Carols (not a lie).

This tradition of mixing Christmas with all other holidays is so fun and one of my favorites!

Another and probably most favorite Halloween tradition is my Aunt and Uncle's annual Costume Party! Everyone gets so creative and it's fun to see all my family and their alter egos. Some standouts from years past include:

The crowning event that we gear up for all year long though is the Donut Race.

The game is this; a couple of pvc pipes are linked together to form a small arch.

2 Strings are tied to the top and are measured to hang just above the competitor's mouths with a donut dangling on the end.

This is serious business as husband is pitted against wife and parent against child whilst fighting to be the first to bite the donut off the string.

There have been battles of EPIC proportions my friends.

Contestants have even been poetically compared to "Shamu breeching the surface for a seal"!

So that you may also witness the glory:

The party is on Monday this year and you better believe I'm gonna win the title (again) haha!

P.S. One time Andrea actually sewed a costume for me and I was able to realize my dream of being Deedee Doodle from the Doodlebops! You know it was legit because one of the only people who knew who I was, was a three year old girl :)

Happy Hauntings everyone!

Doesn't she make you just want to dance a jig? ...and then struggle to eat a donut (I know I do)The pic above is us just out of high school. We were at a party that had a giant velcro wall and everyone was jumping and sticking to it, but I was hesitant. I remember thinking, "Belle wouldn't do this." ...But then I did it anyway and it was the best. -Random!I can't wait to see Alyssa's costume this year, I hear it's a "curious" one. Be sure to visit Alyssa over at Happy Happens and be prepared for more hauntingly fun ghost posts all this week!

I am honored to present you, on this fine October day, a ghost blog post from someone who truly understands great Mexican food ...oh, and of course Halloween, Jenny! Jenny and I used to work at a Mexican food restaurant together and bonded over pollo grandes and bean dip. I don't know what we bond over now, but we still bond. Jenny's blog is always one I look forward to reading whenever it's costume season (be it Halloween or a Harry Potter movie premiere), this post shows just a little preview of her amazingness

When I was young, I thought Halloween was the greatest invention.

Here's me and my brothers, Halloween 1987:

(In case you can't tell what we are: A Main Dish, a Barbie Bride (that's me), a Trash-Bag Skeleton, and a Vampire with a bloody nose. This also happens to be the Halloween night when my mom went into labor while we were trick-or-treating. She had my little brother the next day... perhaps the scariest Halloween ever?)

The following are some Halloween traditions we had when I was a child:

- Dad "inspects" our candy stash, only to steal all our Almond Joys. ("There's almond-shaped razors in all of these... very bad for you kids.")

- Racing to the "good house" in the neighborhood before the man who passed out king-sized candy bars ran out. He just happen to be a candy man, literally. (I'm actually not too sure what constitutes a "candy man" in our day, let's just pretend it's not a little creepy.)

- Winning chili-cookoff contests. Go mom.

Now that I'm (somewhat) all grown up, my husband and I want to create new traditions for our own family (and continue some of the old).

Allow me to share our three new Halloween traditions:

-Screen Ghostbusters on a projector while snacking on Twinkies and smores (with Stay-Puft Marshmallows, of course).

- Kick off Halloween Night with a big chili dinner, followed by a dance party that only plays the song, "Zombie Zoo" by Tom Petty. (Party-ers, let us retire "Monster Mash" as the official Halloween song. It's time to build the "Zombie Zoo" in your town.)

- Make homemade Halloween costumes that require an explanation of who you are. Read on as I share a few examples:

"June is not just ANY octopus. She is an octopus from the "Octopus' Garden", a song by the Beatles."

"William and I are not just ANY gangsters from the 80's. We're the two 'gangsters turned backup dancers' from the classic Michael Jackson music video entitled 'Beat It'." (That's a mini Michael Jackson standing in front of us, by the way.)

I'm sure as the years pass, our traditions will build.

But I think we're off to a spooky start.

Happy Haunting!

Jenny B

Thanks Jenny!I can't wait to hear about more of Jenny's traditions as years pass ...and to bust out some Tom Petty on October 31st!Be sure to check out Jenny's blog, Smiles Awake You When You Riseand have yourself a ghostly day (in a good way)

p.s. if you didn't click on that link for Beat It, scroll back up and click it. Everyone deserves to see MJ in all his glory.

(that's me on your right... the blonde. My sister and I were hobos last year.)

I am super excited to be Ghost Posting today! Halloween is definitely a favorite holiday of mine, and always has been. That happens when you're mom is obsessed (in a good cute way, not a bad creepy way) with Halloween.

Today I'm going to talk about my favorite Halloween tradition...

My sisters, mom, and I love throwing parties. Every year at least one of us throws a big Halloween party. These include themed dinners, crazy decorations, and costumes required. Here are a few from past years...

The three pictures on the left are from a pirate party I had a few years ago and the three pictures on the right are from my mom's witches party last year.

The three on the left here are from a Halloween party I threw a few years ago and the three on the right are from a party my sister threw last year.

Maybe we go a bit overboard... But that's what makes it so fun! Creating that perfectly spooky atmosphere! My pirate party included a scavenger hunt and then a viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean, this year my mom's throwing a Halloween Bunco Witches party. haha! I guess we just love an excuse to get all dressed up. :) Do you like throwing Halloween Parties? I'd love to see pictures!

Before I go, I wanted to show you a video that my friend posted on Facebook. I don't really know if I believe in ghosts or not... I won't really say either way, why tempt them?? haha! But when I saw this video it made me a lean a little more towards the side of belief... What do you think?

Creepy right??

hahahaha! Did I get ya?!

I hope everyone has a fun and SAFE Halloween! I'd love for you all to come and visit me at my normal spot Gentri Lee anytime! :)